The Wall Street Journal-20080214-Politics - Economics- In India- Bias Toward Migrant Workers Turns Violent

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Politics & Economics: In India, Bias Toward Migrant Workers Turns Violent

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In India's financial capital of Mumbai, antimigrant sentiment is reigniting tensions and sparking fears of widespread violence and disruption as more Indians leave the countryside to make a living in the city.

Many targets of the anger, which so far has chiefly involved beatings and destruction of property, have been from the giant north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and employed as taxi drivers and in other basic jobs. Local media said more than 1,800 people had been arrested. Authorities in the state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, arrested a local politician yesterday for allegedly inciting violence against migrant workers from northern India. The arrest of Raj Thackeray, 39 years old, was preceded by days of antimigrant violence in several cities across Maharashtra.

In 2006, Mr. Thackeray founded a regional opposition political party called the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, or Maharashtra Reconstruction Party, a right-wing party that is a splinter group of the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party. Mr. Thackeray is the nephew of Balasaheb Thackeray, who founded Shiv Sena in 1966. The elder Mr. Thackeray has long been one of the most powerful and divisive politicians in the state, and his nephew is now sparking similar controversy.

"The government has not been fair by arresting our leader Raj Thackeray," said Shirish Parkar, a spokesman for the MNS. He added that Mumbai is overpopulated by migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who "grab the jobs of local people, thereby establishing their hold on the limited job opportunities and infrastructure plans of the state."

Mumbai, with approximately 19 million people, is home to the Bombay Stock Exchange, India's central bank and the local headquarters of Wall Street banks and other international financial companies. It has always had a multicultural population -- by some estimates more than 35% of its citizens are migrants from other states -- but it has seen brutal factional violence in the past.

In 1992-93 there was rioting in the city following the destruction of a 16th-century mosque by Hindu nationalists; more than 1,000 died in the ensuing unrest.